Differences a reminder even one-party reign no slam-dunk

With just more than two weeks left of the legislative session, the long list of to-dos left on Minnesota lawmakers' plates is a prime example of what political observers warned: One-party control is no cakewalk.

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party controls the show at the Capitol for the first time in 22 years. Gov. Mark Dayton and his fellow DFLers in the House and Senate share an overarching budgeting plan -- raising taxes to fill in a state budget shortfall and increase education spending by hundreds of millions of dollars -- but they aren't on the same page on how to get there. And social issues like guns and gay marriage tend to fracture the party along geographic lines as well.

Although they still must work out compromise tax and spending bills, DFL leaders downplay any fissures, saying the give and take of legislative negotiations is natural -- even among people from the same party.

"Everyone is going to accept some things they probably don't like. That's the way these negotiations go. I don't expect anybody's going to run the table. I don't expect the Senate's going to, or the governor or the House," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook.

"We'll get it all done and at some point we're going to go on a fly-around and talk about the investments that we made in education ... property tax relief, which is what we ran on, came here to do, and I think we'll accomplish that.

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How we raise the revenue to accomplish that is the tricky part."

But others argue DFL leaders are far from a united strategy and have surprised each other with proposals on numerous occasions during the session. The most notable was when Gov. Mark Dayton dropped his proposal to expand the sales tax to business and consumer services and clothing. He didn't tell legislative leaders or his own staff of his decision before he announced it to business leaders in March.

"They haven't been working from the same playbook from the start. That's clear," said Republican Senate Minority Leader David Hann of Eden Prairie.

NO UNIFIED FRONT

As DFLers continue to negotiate the final tax and spending bills, particularly which Minnesotans will pay more taxes and how much, memories arise of the last time their party controlled Minnesota government.

Governing wasn't always pretty during that stretch from 1987 to 1990 -- particularly in 1989. That's when Gov. Rudy Perpich vetoed a property tax relief tax bill and ended up calling legislators back into special session in the fall to pass a new one.

The move, which infuriated his fellow DFLers in control of the Legislature, was politically risky and set up a potential battle over which groups and regions would get tax relief.

But it ended up having no discernible effect on the Legislature during the 1990 election. House Democrats maintained their 80-54 majority and Senate DFLers picked up two new seats. Perpich lost to Republican Arne Carlson, but political observers say that had more to do with growing dissatisfaction with Perpich's contentious and confrontational style.

And even though Bakk is one of the leaders who likes to remind Capitol folks about that 1989 session, he says he's not foreshadowing or hinting there will be a special session.

A few things in the tax bill are certain:

-- DFLers will raise the income tax on Minnesota's top earners; the rate and income cutoff, though, are up in the air.

-- There will be an increase in cigarette taxes, anywhere from 94 cents to a $1.60 a pack.

-- And they will close the so-called corporate "loopholes" for foreign investments.

But they don't agree on other matters. House DFLers have tax increases for beer, wine and liquor; the Senate and the governor do not. The Senate is on its own with the sales tax, proposing to lower the rate but expand the tax to include clothing, nonprescription drugs and personal services like haircuts.

And they don't agree on the amount of money to be raised through new taxes: The House wants an additional $2.6 billion for the next biennium; the Senate bill adds $1.8 billion.

That usually means one side accepting a tax proposal it doesn't like and dropping one of its own. But House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, worries about a different result -- namely, all those tax proposals rolled into one.

"We're kind of afraid that one bad tax increase that's just in the House bill and one bad tax increase that's just in the Senate bill will mean both bad tax increases will ultimately be in the final bill," Daudt said.

PROMISE UNKEPT

One piece that many agree on is that House DFLers won't be able to make good on one of their biggest campaign promises: paying back hundreds of millions of dollars the state has withheld from schools to balance past budget shortfalls.

They propose a two-year surcharge on personal income of more than $500,000 to pay back the $854 million Minnesota still owes public schools for past state aid payment shifts. Neither the Senate nor the governor wants to accelerate those payments or enact the surcharge.

Former DFL Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe says that even though House DFLers will want something on that issue for their 2014 re-election bids, it's unlikely to pass. "Even schools don't care if that's paid back right away," Moe said.

And once the tax plan is complete, the spending bills will fall into place and most Capitol insiders doubt there will be a replay of 1989.

"It will go down to the wire," Hann said. "I think they would be highly motivated to avoid a special session."

Sen. Dick Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, agreed.

"Our differences in the broad budget pieces are not huge," Cohen said. "And there's a responsibility that comes with voters giving us one-party control. And that's the expectation that we can control the state in a reasonable but progressive way without too much dysfunction."

Cohen said there are plenty of DFLers who have been around long enough to know the assumption from outsiders that Minnesota is a solid left-of-center state is far from true. Democrats got clobbered in 1978, the election commonly referred to as the "Minnesota Massacre."

That's when House Republicans gained 32 seats to win the majority. Cohen, then a member of the House, was one of the victims and lost his re-election bid.

And the Republicans controlled both the House and Senate as recently as the 2011 and 2012 sessions.

The Senate -- with the exception of the 2010-12 biennum -- has been held by the DFL since legislators started running by party designation in 1972.

But Cohen said some of that was by luck. Senators never were up for re-election in years that were bad for Democrats, and 2010 "caught up to us."

"There is volatility. One party-control isn't to be assumed," Cohen said.